Re: going without "without"

On Mon, 16 Aug 1999, Matt Pearson wrote:

>=20
> All well and good.  The problem is that I now no longer
> have a good way to express "without" in Tokana.  Once I'd
> eliminated the preposition "kun" =3D "with", I had to get rid
> of the derived form "tukun" =3D "without" as well, for the
> sake of symmetry.  So now I'm stuck as to what to do instead.
>=20
Well, first of all, there's no reason why the word for 'without' should
be related to 'with', after all, Dutch 'zonder' isn't related to 'met' -
so you could decide to leave one last preposition in ;-).

> Adding a new case form (the "privative" case?) seems a little
> drastic.  I pride myself on the fact that all of the existing
> cases in Tokana (there are 6 of them now) are highly
> polysemous, each combining various different grammatical
> functions in a single form.  It would be a shame to go against
> this trend by adding another case form which has only one
> specific function - to indicate the absence of an object.
>=20
Maybe you can invent a general precasal suffix that negates the case -
that could be very nice - a negated instrumental, ergative or
comitative. All kinds of interesting semantics.

If Denden had this (but it hasn't - I am rather fond of adpositions
myself, even though they tend to become case suffixes in Denden),
it would be something like:

* bay-ta-hye
  stick-NEG-INST
  not using the stick

* Hamal-ta-quat
  Hamal-NEG-soc
  not together with Hamal

You could go also for a productive derivational affix, something
like English <-less>:

  'Stick-less, the old woman walks' or 'the old woman walks stick-less'

Denden actually has a prefix like this, but it is no longer productive:

  'qu-kuran' maskless, someone who walks without a veil.

But Denden also has privative adpositional particle, _tu_ PRIV, etymologica=
lly
related to both the derivational prefix <qu-> and the verbal negation=20
prefixes: <ta- ~ tau- ~ tautau->:

  yadir vough bay   tu   neran.ini
  woman old   stick PRIV walk.HAB
  Deprived of a stick, the woman walks.

Interesting is that generally all negation is prefixal and prepositional
in Denden, except for this - rare - particle, which is almost always used
postpositional, as if it were in some way linked to the following verb.
But it that were true, it would either have the form <tau->, or have its
vowel assimilated to the vowel of the verb, in this case giving <te->.

Of course,=20

  yadir vough bay   (hye)  tau.neran.ini
  woman old   stick (INST) NEG.walk.HAB
  The old woman doesn't walk using a stick.

is also possible.

A participial phrase is another possibility:

  Not needing a stick, the old woman walks.

Denden isn't very well stocked in participles, and this can't be rendered
literarally in Denden. Typical for spoken Denden is a nominalised
subclause with a negated existency operator:

  bay   tau.ga, yadir vough neran.ini
  stick NEG.NOM woman old   walk.HAB
  The old woman walks without a stick.

Actually, typical spoken Denden would be more like:

A. Yadir vough ka, sera   cyun cyun vough ga, tarna sera
   woman old   TOP 2sfHGH very very old   NOM but   2sfHGH

   neran.ini neran.ini. Bay   ka, sera   tautau.kentiri.ju, hayl ga!
   walk.HAB  walk.HAB   stick TOP 2sfHGH SNEG.need.CRT      true NOM

B. Aia! E.sero     zinahama             ka, bay   tau.ga, w=FCwish.ju!
   EXCL poss.1sHGH maternal_grandmother TOP stick NEG.NOM dance.CRT

A. You know the old woman, she is really old, but she's always walking
   and walking. She absolutely doesn't need a stick, I swear!
B. Yeah, and my grandmother dances without a stick.

;-)

Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt